First - special shout owt to my LS K-Slim who put me on to this showing cause I had not heard about it, and I'm usually up on stuff like this -- I'm slipping, lol. :-)
Today I watched a documentary on VH1 called "Lords of the Revolution" which talked about the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement. I was already familiar with the history of the party and the movement because I wrote an extensive research paper about it when I was in the 10th grade and in the 11th grade.
*Sidebar -- it was through this research project that I learned about COINTELPRO and it is the basis of why I will NEVER work for the FBI (as a lot of people have been suggesting me to apply since they are hiring); paycheck or not, there are just some things I am unwilling to sell my soul for -- but I digress...*
Studying the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement is probably what inspired me more than anything to be the type of person I am when it comes to race relations, politics, and social equality. Even with President Obama in office, I feel like we still need that fire, that energy that people like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge & Kathleen Cleaver, Fred Hampton, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and countless other revolutionaries had. You have to understand that there are still people in America who never wanted to see us out of slavery and now that we are through with that phase, there are some people who will do whatever they have to, to keep us under their will and whim -- even if that means killing some of us. If you look at the "downfall" of the Black Panther Party it was orchestrated by the FBI under the rule of the homo-fascist J. Edgar Hoover -- everything from the "beef" between the Black Panther Party & the US Organization to Huey's drug use and Eldridge's alignment with the right-wing -- it was all fueled by the aggressive, racist, and unconstitutional tactics of our federal government. And you wonder why folks say "off the pigs!" or "f-- the police!" ?
This past semester in my Administration of Justice course at GSU, my final project was focused on Police Accountability and Trust -- the gist of my argument was that until law enforcement -- be it local, state, regional, federal -- take responsibility and hold their officers accountable, the African-American community will NOT trust them. If we cannot trust you, then you are going to have a hell of a hard job trying to do your job because no one is going to cooperate with you. When we hear stories about African-Americans being harassed or brutally attacked by the cops, most of us get our hopes up thinking that there is going to be some great knight that will ride in and save the day. But the reality is that most of these cops are handled by internal affairs and when it does make it to court - they are found not-guilty (remember the Sean Bell case?).
I bring all of this up because recently a rapper in Florida was sentenced to two-years for writing a "cop killer" song (http://www.bvblackspin.com/2009/08/10/rapper-cop-killing-song/?icid=main|htmlws-bv|dl3|link2|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bvblackspin.com%2F2009%2F08%2F10%2Frapper-cop-killing-song%2F). It baffles me because we have people making songs about killing people everyday and yet a man makes a song about an experience he had with two cops harassing him and he gets jail time? Slim Shady talked about killing is mom (and seeing that he was hooked on drugs, it's very possible that he would have done it) -- but he didn't go to jail. Not even concerning what the song is about but what happened to free speech.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Man ... what do ya'll think about all of this?
What do I think you ask... well I think that for one we do need some strong figures on the scene to motivate and incite some sort of fire in our people. We have become complacent and are too content with the current conditions we are living under. Sadly, they are no better than they were...ever in our history as a people in this country (well better than slavery but in so many ways that is about the only time). We were brought here to be the labor force of the country and sadly that’s what we still are. We own a very small percentage of businesses and are 9 times out of ten an employee instead of employer. Most of us rent. We do not own our own homes or anything for that matter. We are basically modern day sharecroppers. We work at their companies, then pay all of our bills to them, and then the rest we spend patronizing their businesses staying fly in the latest gear. Leaving us broke and waiting for the next check.
ReplyDeleteIt is a never ending cycle that was started right after slavery and continues to this day. We need leaders and just more people in general to wake up and pay attention to what is really going on in this country. There is a couple in Chicago (I am sure you have heard about this but just in case) who decided that for this entire year they were only going to patronize black businesses. Now this was Chicago. The third(?) largest city in the country.. and they had a hard time finding businesses to supply their needs. In CHICAGO. That was so eye-opening to me. That really showed me that we are in a serious mess when we as a people spend as much money as we do annually and have nothing to show for it in the end. It's really time for some of us to rise up and speak on the major injustices that we are faced with daily. Economically especially. That's what I